The new Director of Football at Arsenal, Raul Sanllehi, has spoken out on his thoughts of buying players in January, and he is of the opinion that it should only be used to fix “unexpected problems”. Last January Arsenal went all out and bought Aubameyang for £50m but when asked if there would be money like that for Emery to spend in January he made it clear that only if there are funds coming in to cover the costs. He said: “We have a self-sustaining business model that is very robust and we are convinced we can be successful under that business model. Today is not the day when we are going to go into lots of detail about transfer planning. Every decision we make involves all the experts at the club and we will always make the right decisions for the long-term benefit of the club.”
And when asked again specifically about this January, he made it clear it is not a priority for him. “We are always alert.” he said. “We are always looking at the market and opportunities that could appear. Normally I am not a strong fan of the winter window. I think the winter window is for unexpected problems. That’s not a rule, it is a principle. We have a full team of professionals looking into the market, analysing the possibilities and the players. The head coach embraces the philosophy we have and the way we want to play. If we see an opportunity, there is a healthy debate.”
To be fair we probably have more than enough players to get through the season even if Ramsey leaves, but of course that doesn’t take into account if we have an injury glut like we have had with defenders so far. We certainly have enough promising youngsters to come in if we get stuck for players.
Should we be worried that Sanllehi doesn’t expect to spend in January?
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Surely the same situation as our club has had for ever as far as I know.
We have ALWAYS been a club that operated within its means, so what’s changed?
Good to have you back Ken-have you been away or just taken a sabbatical?
@ken
Yes but people were shouting at Wenger for not spending and now that he’s gone the same problems are still there.We ‘r not going to match City without money.The problem with wenger is that he was too dogmatic money wise and,by the look of things,he was not the only one.This “self-sustaining”bullshit works in Alice in wonderland,not in real world.
Pires, this “self sustaining” bs has been the Arsenal model for many decades.
We always had to compete with clubs who were willing to buy more than they could afford.
Leeds, Sunderland, Pompey, Newcastle to name a few.
We have competed and matched with those clubs who have been bankrolled by individuals ( oil sheikhs and russian oligarchs) , along with traditionally “bigger” clubs such as United…. remember the Invincibles?
Agree that the same problems are still there, but doesn’t that tell you it wasn’t one man’s fault, especially now he’s no longer there?
Self sustaining is actually a way of life, unless you want to end up bankrupt and a failure.
That’s why Wenger’s youngsters are so important to the club’s future and with Emery’s superb coaching record why can’t we be self sustaining?
Sanllehi in control now we are not gonna talk signings a player for over 3 months in the past the problem was Wenger and Gazidis for not be able to put their egos together and Arsenal suffered now we have better infrastructure top to bottom during Wenger’s era used to be the other way.
Enagic, have you read how many players have been linked with us and/or leaving us in the January window so far?
Wenger was always accused of secrecy and not telling fans what was going on, are we any wiser as fans as to what Emery and co are planning?
All of this is media and fanbased rumours and has nothing to do with how the club is/was run.
Just a quick question, has this”better infrastructure” managed the Ramsey situation better than, say, the Sanchez situation?
What about Welbeck, Monreal to name just two more?
It is being reported that the Italian defender (can’t recall his name at moment) we tried to sign in the summer, is being chased again by the club.
That’s a six month period and I wonder who’s ego you blame for that?
So easy to keep blaming the past, it’s the present scenario’s above that matter now isn’t it?
Yes! They did manage Ramsey situation really well and is not kind of a player to put a club in sword for what quality of football? Is nowhere good they way he thinks he should be one of the top earners and my feelings tell me he will probably be off this coming January transfer window and I really hope so for that to happen – in the past we saw mistakes after mistakes cling on players who were not good enough or injury prone Diaby and Rosicky just two to name and that was down to Wenger whether you like it or not and keep around for so long a bunch of average players who were sold before Emery took over and who were not good to play for Arsenal and also try to lie to Arsenal fans last hour of summer transfer window he tried to buy Lamar for £92 mln! But when he was available for £45 mln that was too much for Wenger! Sanllehi and Emery is a way forward, Emery did it in Spain with almost no budget and Raul did it at Barcelona and many thanks to Josh Kroenke who came to London for 3 months before decisions were made to terminate Wenger’s contract as soon as he was promoted to become a vice chairman of his fathers company I knew something good was coming and I am really happy Kroenke owns 100% will be easy for decisions making unlike before you have people on Arsenal board who didn’t even own a single share! But they had a voice
@Enagic
Your happy that Kroenk takes over?!!
.Are you believing in this “self-sustaining “crap.This miser is the problem.As they say in french “you canot have the butter and the money of the butter”.You have to spend to get results in the pitch therfore you get rewarded off the pitch.Otherwise your dreaming….
You put your money where your mouth is!
Let’s judge Kroenke after our next summer transfer we are not there yet.
The self sustaining model can be success if done by smart people which I believe we have appointed. Yake Liverpool for example, everyone jokes about their net spend but its actually relevant cz most of their big buys have been from sales, time will tell if we get it right or not
That’s good point Costa and we need to sell Ramsey In January and bring in Banega who is way better.
Enagic, good thoughts from you andI respect your opinion.
I actually differ from you with regards to the Ramsey saga.
I don’t actually see the “better infrastructure” comment as a reason to rejoice, rather an example of complete incompetence.
Any club that offers a player a contract, then takes it back is hardly showing the world how to conduct business is it?
Even if it was Gazidis who offered it, why on earth would/should he be conducting such transactions when he couldn’t make his mind up whether to stay or not?
As for Ramsey’s abilities, I would have liked him to have stayed, but his salary demands were seemingly impossible to agree to.
Emery must still want him to stay, he has said so on many occasions. That means he differs from your observations, but no player is bigger than our club, we agree on that.
Not sure where you are coming from with regards to injured players either.
As you know, all our players are under contract and, as such, the club is duty bound to honour those contracts.
Of course Wenger decided if he thought they were going to recover from injuries, but have you EVER considered he took advice from the club’s medical team?
After all, they were all professionals in their field weren’t they?
In actual fact, Emery has not sold any of the players he inherited from Wenger, rather he has given new contracts to three of the players being accused by you of being part of a”bunch of average players” .
Perhaps HE sees the potential of a squad that finished sixth last season? It certainly seems that way so far.
Have you still not realised just how much Gazidis played in the transfer policy of the club? Surely the Ramsey saga shows you the degree of his involvement? Could it have been Kronkie and Gazidis who bulked at the Lemar valuation?
Wenger certainly lost his way in his last two years, no argument with that.
Of course he made mistakes, many mistakes actually, but he also did wonderful things for the club.
Just don’t lose sight of that fact as you continue to belittle him.
Per lost his legs? Well, he certainly run his butt off when he and Holding were magnificent during our last fa cup final win against the champions Chelsea.
You seem to be the only fan who is happy with Kronkie now owning Arsenal Football Club.
Let’s hope your optimism proves correct and your memory improves with regards to Wenger’s achievements.
By the way, I believe the new regime will succeed and I hope Emery will win many more trophies than Wenger did.
You came along well in your last para
To add up, Wenger was not only accused for his secrecy but also he was behind time in modern football and he started to loose his mind a little bit and he didn’t even know what arsenal needed on pitch any more one good example was Mert he lost his legs as s footballer why not replace him ? And have Nacho as an experiment CB? And captain ambard to Walcott? And try to sell to Arsenal fans he was improving as a player! Welbeck needs to go even Ozil unless he got his contract to commercial reason and I hope answer your question
Also you and me and every Arsenal fan know was a gambling strategy, wait till last hour of transfer window and try to bring in new players really? And that had been a game for the pas few years and end up with nothing and come out and say we didn’t find a right player! What about Kallstrom with broken/bad back who end up signed anyway and paid without even playing football?
Off Topic-I read the Spuds have been forced to extend their loan for building that Toilet Bowl to £500m.That is why they have ZERO money to spend and why they will be losing their better players over the next couple of years with no hope of replacing them with the same quality they have now.If they fail to win a trophy this year and end up out of the Top 4 they will wish they had ground shared with Leyton Orient.
Sounds like they are building a mega stadium
I hope whatever they are building will not beat the Emirates
Hi Phil, just had to wait for some test results, quite worrying, but given all clear for the now.
With regards to the spud ground, agree totally with your observations, but does this now bring the total over the£850,000,000 sum already reported?
What a farcical situation, imagine how the media would be reporting this if it was the Emirates!!
Glad to hear the all clear Ken, best wishes for you and your family.
Ken-I sincerely trust you and your family are all ok.
I’m not totally sure of the exact figures but what I di know is that there is no way they have paid £350m to date so I can only assume the total development costs are the £850m that were quoted.I understand the Hotel has been “ Moth-Balled” due to finance.Not so easy building a new Stadium on Budget and on time it seems.And I agree-If Arsenal had these issues building the Emirates we would have been slaughtered in the Media.
Best of luck to you Ken!!
This article reminds me when Arsenal bought only one GK, Cech
I bet Kroenke is now hoping for the Saudis to make a bid
If Kreonke is waiting for a bid he is in a very long queue of GOONER fans who are also waiting . And hoping! EVEN PRAYING! Since Kroenke is putting no money of his OWN in at all and has taken stupid “fees” out for nothing at all , we would be better off with any other Arsenal fan as owner. Even any of us! We lot do at least care about the club. Kroenke cares about nothing except making money out of Arsenal, so why do we need him? We don’t! In an ideal world I would have David Dein own Arsenal.
yes and no yes because he is speaking more like wenger and gasidis and No because i dont expect him to speak of th “war chest” only to get free signings. what could you prefer?
The guy is trying to manage expectations wd will sign players for sure we got some rebuiliding to do
Yes he is clever and he never fail to close a deal when he used to work for Barcelona
I think signing a new player in January is not crucial. We have the squad to finish in the top 4.
What is more important, and can not be rushed, is for this squad to get used to the way the manager wants them to play and to re-program their habits from the Wenger days to ways expected by this new modern manager.
We are only at the beginning of our transformation, and despite great results early have not come close to our potential and still need to learn to play as a team, press as a team and string 90 dominate minutes together every game.
I also expect the manager is holding back some more advanced stuff so he doesn’t overload the players with new information but rather starts them off with basic concepts first.
I think it would benefit the club and manager to assess the players for one season before spending their likely small budget on needed improvements next summer.
Things are changing, really like and agree with your last paragraph, BUT there is an absolute need to either…buy a world-class defender in January… UNLESS Emery can choose from a fully fit defence that includes Kos.
I believe he can improve every one of our defenders, but if the£40,000,000 reported January transfer kitty is true, he has to hope they stay injury free and he can save that money plus his summer kitty to buy the world class player we all know we need.
We don’t need a short term fix like Evans being bought in.
finding a world class central defender for 40 million won’t be easy this day and age. Let’s hope Kos can come back at a decent level.
I agree though that central defense is a pressing issue as will be left back once Nacho slows down.
All some fans think about is “spend spend spend”. What about the players presently at the club that haven’t even played a single PL game?
Like who?Elneny?Not played for a reason.He is not good enough.Kolasinac?Monreal is better.Lichsteiner?Emery prefers Bellerin.Kos?Will get games when fit but will be gone next season.
Not sure who else can be considered
My point exactly, some are not playing because the manger has his choice already. What is the need spending millions on position we really don’t need an addition in? We all should calm down an support the players we have, not too long ago some wanted some players out but now they are praising them when these players have another rough patch we know what they will all want the club to do. Buying a player 100mil doesn’t guarantee success.
Exactly – we have good players but need to improve the defenders as a priority.We would all love to see a winger with pace but not at the expense of defenders surely?
Ramsey going frees up a midfield place that AMN can easily step into when he is fully fit.Two top class CB’s and a winger will make us a threat as a top 4 side but quality costs money.Do we have £150m to spend with this owner?We have just secured an ADDITIONAL £150m from Adidas for kit sponsorship for 5 seasons so on paper we do.We just need an owner who will not S**T himself at that amount of spending
Tired of saying this on here and to you I have no need, since I know we agree, but no top team ever seriously challenges for the title without a proper defence. This lack of a defence and over very many past years too has been WENGERS POISONOUS LEGACY TO THIS GENERATION OF FANS AND PLAYERS. We currently have only one outfield defender of proven top class and that was Koscielny but some time ago now. Torreira is a DM not merely a defender so I exclude him , as he is obviously a top player. I see at present no other outfield proven top class player who would get anywhere near our top rivals starting eleven. While we have to play such as Bellerin and the even more dreadful Mustafi in the eleven our title hopes are zero and will continue to be. Getting a host of new, proper defenders is our REAL priority therefore. Some are promising it is true but not top class proven defenders, except Licht, who is not picked. I find it strange that any football person could ever prefer BELLERIN to him. But then I always have preferred full backs who consider it their prime duty to properly defend, NOT to be wingers. I am though happy with LENO, as long as from now he is first choice keeper, not Cech.
Mr Jon fox for someone that shows himself as knowledgeable you appear funny to me. Who told you apart from Lucas none of our outfield players will make our rivals 11? You hardly make comments without dragging Wenger, he is gone let the man be for crying out loud.
Bellerin you cry out about every time will comfortably make any top team 11, yes defense win titles just like a wise man said, but if am not wrong Niko Kranjčar team had one of the best defence but couldn’t stay up. You shouldn’t put everything on defence (though they are important), attack win games and title too.
Support the team Mr Jon stop bashing them at every opportunity you get.
aeontisty, as you say , for which I thank you, I AM knowledgeable. In fact, knowledgeable enough because of having 60 years football watching since aged 8 behind me watching and attending Arsenal games and loads of other matches too worldwide(at least in the most well known main leagues). It is a universally recognised concept that to hope to win titles you MUST, repeat, MUST have a sound defence. I challenge you to name any main league ever won by a team with a poor defence. You will not be able to do so! On Bellerin you are entitled to your opinion, which to me seems bizarre, but I am also entitled to mine and I say he is a rank bad defender, though much improved this season going forward. I also never said, nor even implied , despite your odd comment, that attack is not equally important. In fact, I have very many times said- though I appreciate you are fairly new on this site, unlike me – that attack and defence are equal important sides of any top title standard team. I remind you that in this country and on this site we are allowed free, (though non hateful speech) , for which as a democrat and freedom lover, I intend to continue using. This may well include WENGER, and if you do not like it then I have a solution to offer you; it is this: DON’T READ MY POSTS. NOT DIFFICULT , IF YOU TRY HARD!!! I wish you well and have no animosity towards you. I only ask that you grant me the same decency and do not offer yourself as a self imposed censor of my posts. Because if you try, you will fail. Finally, what you perceive as “bashing” , I call realism and truth as I see it!
You’re wrong Jon about no team ever winning a title with a bad defence – throughout any of the top leagues. Barcelona and Real showed god awful defending at times and it was pretty much a stated fact. Teams would say, well if you can get at them then you will receive joy facing that defence. They kept the ball so well and had such a huge threat going forward. The quality of opposition further down did not have enough about them for it to trouble them enough or for it to effect the final outcome. You’re still surely wrong with that one, all the same.
I just do not agree. True their defences obviously got far less publicity than their sublime attacks. But to make out their defences were poor is just inaccurate. Or plain wrong, if you prefer. Real and Barca because of their status and ability to get virtually any superstar they set their mind on are special cases BUT I still do not agree their defences were poor. That is a myth and lazily peddled by those teams and fans who tried to convince themselves they were beatable. Barca in their prime years were pretty much unplayable and I think you know that defence was a key part of that too. You do not get to that standard of unplayableness(if such a word exists. And if it doesn’t then it should!) with a poor defence. Some just like to fool themselves with a clear myth. What however is clear is that in Spain the lower down teams are far poorer in standard, in relation to the top teams than their Prem counterparts though! All thr more reason for any would be top Prem team to have a sound defence. Which right now, we do NOT have, thanks to what WENGER LEFT BEHIND.
Real Madrid’s prime years have been these last three CL wins. I am not talking about that, if you think back you know I am right. Barcelona the same, they had seasons when the defence was just not good. You know that. They might have had big names but because of the expansive style and the lack of putting out real defensive tactics, they were poor and you know it. They could get away with it because of the quality in the league. Any good judge of strong defensive systems will know that what you say is just wrong. You have a selective memory if you cannot remember shocking defensive displays by those two teams.
I might have a far field view of things and probably upset a fair few people but it’s tiring to hear comments like ‘Kroenke cares about nothing except making money out of Arsenal’
Its a real self delusion if we feel someone who own’s a business is going to not want to make money out of it.
I own a business, it operates in the UK and Ireland predominately but my factories are in Italy and Germany. For me these factories are like my football clubs and our employees are our talented ‘footballers, coaching staff, management..’. If I don’t make my business profitable I don’t attract the best workers who could get paid better and work in better conditions and learn to develop. All of that is of cause relative to me making money for my investment.
I am not pro kroenke I am pro Arsenal. We have a strategy it appears, good or bad I don’t know – but any institute requires to follow the plans to have any chance of success.
I read the article about January not being a market for AFC.
I think for this January I would say we shouldn’t invest because unai needs to know our players some more before deciding on ins and outs.
We might know our players more than him but he has been there a short time in the grand scheme of things.
So, for me…not bothered about Jan window. Let others pay the inflated prices.
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Tom , you omitted to state in what area of business your company works. I trust though , that you will agree that a football club is far more than a business. The clue is in the title FC, football club, with the word “club” being equally important to the word “football”. In football , unlike most companies, a top club has millions of passionate followers who, though not legally owners, are morally and emotionally deeply attached to that club. Same too with smaller clubs; just fewer people attached though. PRINCIPLE REMAINS EXACTLY THE SAME. THANK GOD! It is precisely the new money mad corporate people who now run football itself and all associated business activities , such as TV, merchandise, promotions and above all the owners, who are multi billionaires, who are responsible for the awful change in football over the last decade or two (or three, in some cases). The change from a sport largely untainted by obscene wages and obscene ticket prices to a business where players are often remote from fans, where parasitical agents enrich themselves at the fans expense(via huge wage hikes paid to such as Sanchez , Ozil etc . etc.). This makes football today much the poorer in spirit. To compare a football club to your, or anyone elses commercial business, as you have done, is to completely misss the point of what football and a football club SHOULD be all about. I would have thought that as a, presumably, successful businessman you would have given this subject deeper and more accurate thought.
Jon, we must not be limited by the fact the known name has football club to its title – like how we must not be limited by the fact a charity has the word charity within it. It is far more than just a charity or a football club or a school…. – it is an entity of something. It is for this reason a £1 donation to a charity will not be a £1 donation fully towards a charitable cause, but a percentage towards it – whilst the rest towards the infrastructure.
Fortunately (or unfortunately – depending on how you look at it) Football clubs are like most successful companies; and like (for example) Apple they too have millions of passionate followers who support them by purchasing ipods, iphones, ipads and imacs…and are therefore emotionally attached to Apple who they follow and maybe hope to one day improve on their products and service.
Essentially football is a game between 2 teams and what it should be is an opportunity to encourage young players to become footballers. You could argue that to achieve this you may well require TV deals, Merchandising so that in a remote location like the suburbs of mexico you have some little child who owns an Arsenal football kick and watches them on their TV – and maybe one day their dream of playing for Arsenal might come true.
So, for Football to continue it requires to be part of being a business. The model is the same for any business. Arsenal is in the business of Football – and we need to have owners who can sustain that! The spirit might be seen as being poorer or it could be seen to be more wide spread. Tell an emotional, crying fan (because he got a picture with Ozil) in Singapore that football has less spirit because owners have invested in multi-million pound deals (He will tell you it is to get football to them).
Do I believe that Football today is a big corporate money making machine? I would say yes, but I would also indicate how this machine has benefits. Its evolution…as much as we might not like that, its evolution.
The big issue is really we are not overly happy that we might have owners who do not love our club as much as us – the Fans. But this is not relevant for me if we look to be evolving with the times.
The initial point I made that Kroenke and Co get knocked for what they don’t appear to be doing is frustrating because it is driven in my opinion by the fact they don’t love our club as much as us. Its why I guess you would like Dein to own AFC – because he loves Arsenal?!
In 12 months our backroom staff has been turned over and we have brought in some excellent recruits – from a football director (if I can say that term), to a new manager to head of recruitment… That’s a positive for me. Its not fair to bass our owners because of the general state of where football is going or because a smart business owner doesn’t invest their own money to purchase AFC or because they do not love AFC as much as me.
As much as I do not want to stop anyone from expressing their opinions, I must express my thoughts on what I feel is unfair – we may…as it appears disagree on these points but I hope my thoughts have given some insight into a different observation.
Everyone here is ignoring the most important point. Our self-sustaining model worked because Wenger performed miracles and kept Liverpool out of 4th place vs the big 3 who can literally drop out the top 4 for 3 years+ and make it back guaranteed.
Liverpool have strong squad and they have a management/owner team that seem to recognise that long-term we are their only threat to yearly CL (Spurs have no money its going to end badly for them.) What this has resulted in is Liverpool backing their manager now with funds to make that happen.
Honestly our only hope is that Kronke/Co want to see how Emery does this year (ie will we replace him) before backing him to make sure we beat out Liverpool especially as Spurs are strong now but will decline. It’s the obvious strategy move but I haven’t seen it yet, fingers crossed they just want to see Emery perform 1st!
If Koscielny is back to full fitness and all our players are consistent and injury free, we won’t need to sign anybody.
Just get Martial to sign a pre-contract agreement with Arsenal.
Koscielny will improve the defence n Kolasinac ll get better n fitter.
Niles will improve a lot n be a better back up than Elneny
Iwobi ll get better especially with his shooting.
Ramsey can be replaced with a Cazorla-esque like Banega for as lil as 15m.
Aubameyang will be a Madrid’s Ronaldo-esque winger, thats if he’s not already.